


Doing Business As

by sidana



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 07:31:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10212593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidana/pseuds/sidana
Summary: On a day when life seems bogged down in bureaucracy, Xander jumps as a chance to get back into the field when an old friend comes by.





	

Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my universes. I’ll put everything back where I found it when I’m done playing with it. 

Written for: The’ Twenty Years After’ challenge at Twisting the Hellmouth.

Doing Business As

The luxury express bus that connected the western suburbs of Nairobi to its central business district was neither particularly luxurious nor, given the usual awful state of Nairobi roads and traffic, particularly express. But on days when Xander planned on working more or less normal business hours, it was a far easier option than driving into, and then finding parking in the middle of the city for his Land Cruiser. So he sat watching the constantly changing city out the bus window as it inched down the inadequate road that came from an era when far fewer Kenyans could afford cars. Most of his seat mates were hunched over their phones to either play games or watch the early numbers out of the Indian stock markets for the day. A few of them slept, their heads rolling back against head rests. He wished he could join the sleepers, but ever since the Handanay demon had tried to get into his stopped cab in Brussels, Belgium of all places, he had been totally unable to doze off on land-based public transportation no matter how tired he was or how comfortable the seats were. 

So instead he looked out the window, trying to notice what what new amid the constantly-changing structures of the city, whether it was a different food cart at the corner or an unpermitted fifth floor going atop a building at another cross street. Eventually, he reached his stop in the CBD and got off the bus into the usual swarm of humanity. 

The roads here were wider, but instead of adding traffic lanes, the right of way had been taken over by any number of food carts and small stores that catered to the needs of the people who worked in the skyscrapers behind the carts. More small businesses occupied the ground floors of the big buildings. The line at the corner M-Pesa store snaked well around the block. It was apparently pay day for a lot of the third shift janitors and security guards who were now waiting to put their paychecks onto their cell phones or send money back to family in their home villages. As Xander made his way around the line to his own building, the smell suddenly hit him over the usual diesel fumes, and he found himself almost under a spell as his feet carried him into Keisha’s American Bakery for a dozen cinnamon rolls, their special of the day. Exchanging the usual small talk with the owner, who had come to Kenya with an IMF job and then stayed when she married a local, he noted that Friday was bear claw day and mentally adjusted his sweets-buying plan accordingly. An army ran on what went into their stomachs after all, and he needed to keep his part of the team on an appropriate sugar high. 

Large pastry box in hand, he walked toward his own office located in one of a series of beige, concrete-block ten story towers, their windows sealed shut as a proclamation that, yes, the power in this part of the CBD would remain strong and consistent enough to keep the air conditioning on even in the hottest part of the summer. Entering the front door, he was waved through the brightly-lit lobby by Michael the security guard and Gert the receptionist, who reminded him that elevator maintenance was scheduled for next week. 

The continental office of the New Watchers Council, Reformed that was locally doing business as The Society for Improvement of African Women and Girls was on the sixth floor and, in typical Kenyan fashion, wedged in between an organization called the Toilet Foundation and an internet start-up company that would let you order food from your phone and have it delivered. The front of their space was currently occupied by Prudence Cheruiyot, his office manager. The rest of the space was quieter than he had expected. 

“All of that for me?” Prudence asked, looking at the box over her computer monitor. 

“As long as I get one of them, the rest are yours to do with as you will,” he said as he mentally went down the list, remembering that of the eleven people who were normally in the office, four were on a plane to Rwanda this morning, three were in Dubai on vacation, and the other two were getting over dengue fever and doing light work from home, leaving only him and Prudence physically present until the pastry went dry and stale. 

“They will definitely not go to waste,” she said, taking the box from him and temporarily putting it next to a large vase of roses. Last month, the local Watchers office had helped deal with a messy malignant haunting situation at one of the bigger flower wholesalers in the city, and in thanks, the business seemed to want to keep the office in bouquets from now to the next apocalypse. Might as well use that to his advantage. 

“I know that they won’t. And Katia is supposed to be back from Maputo on Monday. Can you give our flower guys a call and get them to deliver something pretty to her office for me?”

“Certainly. She’s good for you, Harris, and makes you happy. And with all the hard work you do, you deserve the happiness.” 

“Thanks,” he said, heading toward his office. Katia was Katrina Salo, a Brazilian NGO worker based out of Nairobi, and currently his friend with very good benefits. She was beautiful and spoke like eight different languages, and was athletic in all kinds of interesting ways and in general he felt like she was way too good for him. He wasn’t sure where the relationship was going, but for now, he wanted to give her every excuse possible to get together for some fun.

His office was a good size, and largely furnished from the Cairo IKEA. Prudence had turned out to be most excellent with an allen wrench when they had been putting it all together. Two computers, an old school desk phone, and assorted cell phone chargers and a horde of paper organizers threatened to collapse the particleboard underneath it. A few old texts he hadn’t put back in the office library yet perched on top of grey file cabinets. 

An oversized paper map of Africa from around 1993 took up most of the left wall. In the typical African fashion of never letting anything go to waste, Prudence had relabeled Zaire as ‘Other Congo’ and drawn in borders for Eritrea and South Sudan to keep it up to date. Push pins of assorted sizes, shapes, and colors were shoved into the map. Some marked the Watchers’ satellite offices in Lagos, Tunis, and Cape Town, others were color-coded to mark upcoming prophecy events and recent clusters of evil supernatural activity. Those were changed on a regular basis, unlike the simple white pins with crosses and crescents on the end that marked where one of his people or allies had died trying to save the world. Someone had to remember who the heroes were, even if their stories were never known to most of humanity. 

For all that Andrew and Marissa had developed some insanely great GIS system that would show what was on his map and more, he still liked his system better. And still would even if Andrew hadn’t dubbed the software Apocalypse Now and Again and set it up so that it played ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ every time you booted up the program. 

Xander turned on his computer, and started to go through his e-mail, skimming the usual reports, notices, and announcements for teleconferences that require him to be online somewhere around 3:00am if he wanted to see everyone. He groaned a bit at the e-mail from Open University since he really would rather deal with another Hellmouth than sign up for “Principles of Accounting for International Non-Governmental Organizations 2”, decided that he’d earned the right to say he was taking the class on the history of Japanese animation instead, and briefly pondered whether Katia would laugh at him too much if he decided to try out beginning Portuguese on her. 

Another e-mail that thanked him for booking a recent stay at Giraffe Manor brought a brief smile to his face. At seven years old, Maggie Joy Wynn-Summers was still too young for a ‘real’ safari but she had certainly loved staying at a place where the giraffes roamed the grounds and were tame enough to take food out of her hands. Despite Dawn’s claims that Uncle Xander and the entire Council were spoiling her daughter, he still couldn’t resist doing everything he could to show her that there were wonderful things in the world worth fighting for. He didn’t know what Maggie’s future would hold, but if she chose to go into the family business, it wouldn’t be easy.

A few years after they had left Sunnydale, Dawn had moved on to Oxford to try to recover some of the old Watcher’s Council research materials. On a weekend trip to Nottingham, she had gotten tangled up trying to close a literal gateway to hell that had taken on the form of something that looked like the Sarlacc from Star Wars. It had involved sex magic with a local druid, and when she had discovered she was pregnant, Dawn had decided to continue the pregnancy after a lot of thought and discussion. Margaret Joy had been born seven months later, and thanks to be best efforts of the National Health Service, was as healthy of a seven year old as Xander ever saw. 

His phone beeped at him, interrupting Xander’s thoughts on small girls and giraffes. He picked it up, and it reminded him that he had a teleconference with Grace set up for five minutes from now. Opening up the right software on his computer and logging on, he was rewarded with the picture of a solidly built black woman sitting at a table at an outdoor cafe in Kigali, cranes building yet another set of skyscrapers behind her shoulders and the whole scene looking like some sort of ‘Invest in Rwanda’ poster campaign. 

“Good morning,” Grace said, waiving a white coffee cup cheerfully in his direction. 

“Good to see you today,” he replied. “I’ve got word that my team’s flight left on time this morning, and their flight should be touching down there in about an hour.”

“Excellent. It’s always good to have some extra hands with the good weapons when you’re trying to take out a nest of dargos beasts, nasty things that they are. I’m all set to get the flamethrowers over the border if necessary.” Meaning that Grace had paid off all the right border guards to look the other way when they crossed over into the Congo. 

“As always, we’re glad to help out with the expenses. Just let me know what you need.” The Rwandan Supernatural Protection Council was one of the most effective small demon and vampire fighting groups in Africa, but like anyone else here, could always use a little extra funding. 

“Peace among the different tribes next door?” 

“I wish. But even the god I know can’t really untangle that mess.” 

“Yah. And if they could their price would probably be very high to pay. Damn the Belgians.” 

The supernatural baddies were, for the most part, not the reason for Africa’s problems. But they were good opportunists and had a knack for taking advantage of every conflict, civil war, or insurrection, and using it as cover to entrench themselves into a very comfortable existence for themselves and a very miserable life for surrounding villagers. The eastern Congo and its chronic unrest was enough a current hotspot of demon and vampire activity that Xander really did need to put a team of Slayers under Grace permanently, provided he could ever get that damn mess in Nigeria straightened out first. 

“Damn the Belgians. And damn their beer.” That got a brief smile from Grace and they continued their discussion of logistics for the slaying trip until Grace had to leave for the airport to collect his team.

After the call concluded, he worked through the rest of his e-mail, dreading the expense account reviews that were supposed to go to Oxford at the end of the week. There were so many things that made perfect sense down here that tended to give any sane UK-based accountants fits. At the last second, he was saved by Prudence knocking on his door, and then sticking her head into the office. 

“Gert just called from the front desk. There is a man named Adam Pierson who says he wants to talked to you.” 

“Adam is here? I thought he’d never….” 

“One of your old friends?” 

“Old friend but not California old. He’s from when I first came over to Africa and was doing the usual Nigeria-Angola-Sierra Leone-Ghana loop. He’s got a doctorate in anthropology and has some sort of day job for the oil companies where he goes and says that a new project would have no significant negative cultural impact.” Adam Pierson was also Not Quite Human, though Xander wasn’t sure exactly what he was. You usually only got so many questions for Not Quite Humans before they got cranky about answering, and Xander preferred to save them for major issues like whether the person was planning on ending or taking over the world, what were their thoughts on long pig, or other things along those lines. 

“And I assume that his night job is…?”

“Hunting, and you know how it goes where it’s a small career field and you keep running into the same people over multiple countries again and again?”

“Very much.”

“That’s how it is with Adam. The girls and I would bail him out of trouble a few times, and then he’d more than return the favor a few times more.” And in some cases, many times more. “Tell Gert I’ll be right down,” he said, nearly bouncing to the elevator and going down to the ground floor. 

 

The pale, dark-haired man standing next to the reception desk was dressed in what Xander would always think of as tweedy casual- the button down shirt and tan rumpled sports coat were still there, but he had skipped the tie and the pants where khakis instead of something more formal. After apparent conversation with Prudence, Gert had slapped a name tag on the sports coat that proclaimed Adam to be a building guest. 

“Xander, it’s good to see you again!” Adam said with a polite smile as he extended a hand. 

“Same here,” Xander replied, taking the hand and then using his free arm to draw Adam into a brief man hug. One of these days, Xander would manage to figure out just where the scabbard of the sword was. “I thought you said you were never coming within 200 miles of the Tanzania border. 

“You know how it goes. Just when you think you’ve got a concrete rule in place, there’s a reason to change the rule. Nice set-up you’ve got here, even if it is uncomfortably close to Tanzania,” Adam said as they made their way to the elevator.

“When we figured out Lagos just wasn’t the right spot for the big African office, even if street demons could keep us more than busy, it came down to who had the best flight schedules out of the local airport and also had a good local IT set up. Nairobi not only beat out Cape Town on the shiny planes, but it also won on the computer technology stuff,” Xander said as they got on the elevator. “We bought a great system from the University of Nairobi last year that was originally used for gorilla-tracking that Andrew has managed to repurpose to give us a way of tracking demon horde migration patterns. “ 

“You’ve come far from the first time I saw you.” 

“And have learned a lot since then,” Xander said as they walked into the office. “Prudence Cheruiyot, this is Dr. Adam Pierson.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Prudence said. 

“And good to meet you,” Adam said. “Of that Cheruiyot family?” 

“Indeed,” she replied. 

“I couldn’t have an office in Nairobi without someone in her family, and Prudence can manage to tolerate me pretty well,” Xander said with a small smile. The Cheruiyot family had been in Nairobi almost as long as there had been a Nairobi, taking on the responsibility of keeping the city as free from supernatural evil as possible. They were generally quite successful; it was too bad that the cops in charge of catching the human criminals in the city couldn’t manage to be a tenth as good at their jobs. 

“I find him far more tolerable than the bureaucracies he asks me to wrangle,” she said, giving her best tiny but dramatic sigh. “Until you came along, my morning was going to be spent dealing with new requirements for yellow fever cards for multi-entry business visas in Senegal, and one of Xander’s old friends has to be more interesting than yellow fever cards now, don’t they?” 

“I try not to be, but sometimes I just become more interesting that I want,” Adam said. 

“Isn’t that always the case,” Xander said. 

“Most people do have interesting things to tell, even if they don’t realize it. I can offer you coffee or tea, and Xander brought breakfast rolls, and I would love to hear how the two of you met.” 

“Tea would be good,” Adam said, and the three moved over to the office conference room, Prudence positioning herself so she could still see the reception area in case anyone decided to come by. 

“Okay, short version of the story,” Xander said as he finished his second cinnamon roll of the morning and contemplated snaring a third. “It was back when I was traveling with Elizabeth and Lesliana and we’d just finished up dealing with mess that could have wiped Togo off the map. Ended up in Lome for the night before getting out of the country and our hotel had really good satellite television. The girls were sharing a room and since I didn’t want to get stuck mediating on whether they were going to watch ‘Africa’s Next Top Model’ or Brazilian soap operas, I declared that I needed a beer and headed out to the bar I’d seen down the street. Three beers later, nature called, and it was one of those laces where the toilet block is kind of out back in a garden and shared among a bunch of different buildings nearby. So I did my business and then just as I thankfully managed to zip my fly, there is this thing coming up out of the cesspool. I think it was some sort of baby Golgothan, and then…”

“I was also in the same bar doing the same thing, and just when I was walking out to the toilets, I saw that drunk fellow,” Adam said, gesturing toward Xander, “waving what looked to be a letter opener at a particularly bad-smelling demon… “

“It was not a letter opener, and not everyone can do the sword hide thing like you do under a tank top.”

“And we dealt with that demon and a friendship began,” Adam said. 

“And considering how many time the girls and I kept running into him over the next few years, it’s actually kind of surprising that we hadn’t met before then.” 

“Speaking of the girls, may I ask about them?” Meaning that Adam knew enough about the typical Slayer that it was best to be a little delicate. 

“Both of them doing well. Elizabeth is head of the South African office,” he said, pulling out his smartphone and toggling over to the saved pictures until he had one of a group of people standing in front of Victoria Falls smiling, a young black woman with neat braids front and center of the scene. “I was down in Cape Town a few weeks back to do a site visit and the office was going out to do a check on some mysterious drownings on the Zambia side of the falls that didn’t seem to be the usual deaths by pissed off and hungry wildlife. Found the demon who was trying to unsuccessfully pass the deaths off as hippo attacks, dealt with him and then decided to do a little sightseeing. You will note that, this being Elizabeth, she still has not a hair out of place, even though it got pretty messy for the rest of us out there.” 

“And still the rattle of her beads to know she had your back in the middle of a fight?” 

“Wouldn’t be Elizabeth behind you if you didn’t hear that,” Xander said as he showed Adam a few other pictures. 

“And Lesliana?” 

“She transferred to Brazil after a warlord who wouldn’t take no for an answer kept chasing after her to be bride number four,” Xander said, going to the next folder on his phone and pulling up a video. “Still slaying there and taking some college classes in international relations on the side. And also still the same in many ways. Between school and work keeping her busy, she can be hit or miss in terms of staying in contact with me directly, so I take what I can get from third parties.” 

He hit play on the video and passed his phone to Adam. On the screen another girl who was darker than Elizabeth but lighter than Prudence and had hair straightened into a short bob tried to samba across the screen. A few seconds in, she managed to not only lose time but trip over an ottoman in the apartment, slayer grace only then kicking in and letting her roll back to her feet. 

“Yes, slayers are always graceful aren’t they?” the woman filming said into the phone’s mic. 

“Keep it up, Kennedy, and see who helps you with your statistics homework now,” Lesliana grumbled. “And remember who can also keep you from dancing in the carnival parades next year.” 

“But enough about us, what brings you to Nairobi?” Xander asked as he clicked the phone screen closed. 

“Reports of a dangerous artifact that needs to be acquired and destroyed,” Adam said. “The people who have it have named it the Orb Infinitus.” 

“And where do we fit in?” Prudence asked.

“It’s in private hands in a city where I have no connections,” Adam said. “And your group has been here long enough to hopefully make the right ones.”

“I can try, but remember, giant-ass place that seems to add the population of Alaska to the city every year.” 

“I need to get into the Kenya Orchid Tennis Club,” Adam said. 

“Of course it would be the Orchid,” Xander said with a little groan as Prudence made a small face of distaste. “Yeah, I know people there. Be the local head of a charity, even if it’s a cover, especially if it’s a cover, and you do the ladies who lunch circuit with your picture of some dangling babies on their knees in front of the medical clinic, girls playing soccer, girls making traditional crafts for export sale, and all the other projects you’re funding.” The Society for Improvement of African Women and Girls did have a legitimate charity arm overseen by a former Gates Foundation accountant who had moved into administrative weirdness sector after she had seen her brother killed by a vampire. So any money Xander collected under that name did go to good and carefully vetted causes. 

“I take it you didn’t care for it?” Adam said. 

“Those kinds of private clubs these days, usually it’s a mix of people. You know, over in the corner, they’re a guy from the bush talking Coca Cola franchise areas with someone who flew in from Atlanta for the talks, or some sort of discussion between the locals and the Indians about making more money with banking systems or something. The Orchid though, it’s like all the old people who thought Kenyan independence was a really bad idea plus newcomers from South Africa yearning for the good old days. And I’ll never be good about playing nice with people who think there are things they can say because I’m a pale guy. On the other hand, we get to mess with them?”

“If they’ve got the Orb Infinitus.” Adam said. 

“So what do you need from us?” 

“To get inside and look around. I also presume we won’t be able to just walk out of there with it on the spot, so we’ll need to return after closing time for it, if it’s genuine.” Adam said. 

“Assuming you’ll knock out any guards and dogs, should I call up Cousin Caroline to deal with the non-alive aspects of security?” Prudence said, drawing a look of curiosity from Adam. 

“That would be good,” Xander said. Prudence went back to her desk area to set things up while Xander explained. “Cousin Caroline went off to the States on a running scholarship and came back with a degree in computer science and cyber-security. Her company hasn’t met an alarm system they can’t hack, probably because they designed it in the first place and left in a few back doors for themselves. The Watchers are just lucky Prudence gets us the friends and family discount rate for her services because cheap she is not.” 

Xander called his contact whose family were members at the Orchid. Since it was that kind of place, he had to go back to his house on the way to the club for a coat and tie in order to be allowed into the bar. They cabbed it back to the suburbs, and were dropped off at Xander’s neighborhood.

It was a nice enough morning that they got out at the gate for a bit of a walk instead of going straight to his house, Xander exchanging pleasantries to the familiar armed guard at the entrance. Home was in a walled compound development that was a mix of locals and ex-pats and consisted of streets of townhouses and duplexes surrounding a green community park. It was apparently playgroup time at the park as a rainbow of children swarmed swings and climbing structures and were watched over carefully by a mix of mothers, nannies, and Colin the lone Irish househusband. Xander had had his fair share of beers with Colin and considered him one of his better friends in town. 

“Howe’s it going, Samuel?” Xander asked the gardener working on the yard of the home next to his just after they got past th park.

“Very good, Alexander. And even better for my eldest son, who has finally save up enough to buy the big coffee farm his family has been dreaming about.”

“Tell Ezekiel I said congrats. I’m really happy for him,” Xander said. “Ezekiel’s a truck driver that does way too many runs up toward the Somalia border because his company gives him danger pay for it, and I’m glad for him getting away from that now.”

Unfortunately, Ezekiel’s gain was Xander’s loss. The area was dangerous enough that Xander did not want to put any of his people up there full time, and Ezekiel had been Xander’s best informant when it came to finding out about legitimate supernatural problems in that region. Trying to seem happy when he wanted to groan, Xander let himself and Adam into his house, a three bedroom two story midway down the row of homes. 

“Do you want anything to drink?” Xander asked. 

“Water is good,” Adam said. Xander pulled a single serving bottle out of the fridge and passed it to the other man. He then headed upstairs to his bedroom to get a coat for himself and a pair of ties. He passed one to Adam before starting to fumble his own on. 

“I hate this stuff,” he said, managing not to choke himself as he tightened the fabric up around his throat.

“This stuff?” 

“Playing dance, monkey dance in front of those kind of people and knowing they’re looking for any excuse to judge me. Because I apparently still have childhood issues about that kind of stuff.”

“How’s that?” Adam asked as he drunk down his water.

“When I was growing up, we were never poor. I knew that then. I definitely know that now. Never had the bright orange free school lunch ticket of shame like some of my classmates did. But there’s also a difference when you know your back to school clothes came from K-Mart and the cool kids got theirs from a real mall and I don’t think I ever stopped feeling it. And then you move to a place where the cool kids get on a plane to Dubai for their school shopping, and here I am, still me.”

“The me who is head of an international organization that saves the world twice on Tuesdays and is darn good at it at this point? And your cool kids spend their days drinking down the family fortune? You’re more than competitive at this point,” Adam said, patting Xander on the shoulder. 

“Yeah, yeah, get all logical on me. Still doesn’t help the feeling in the gut sometimes,’ Xander said. 

*******

It was a sign of the Orchid Club’s success that is was still in its original location from a time when the surfer of Karen had been mostly farmland. As it became surrounded by more compound neighborhoods, apartment complexes and shopping malls, most clubs like it would have just sold the property and moved further out to rebuild where land was cheaper. The club even still had a good-sized parking lot Xander was able to pull into after the guard found his name on the guest list. 

“The Land Cruiser, the official unofficial vehicle of Kenya and several dozen other African countries,” Xander said as he pulled next to one that was the same color, trim level, and model year as his own. At least his insecurities never extended to the vehicular sort. 

“Ever since the Land Rover started trying to get by on past glory…” Adam agreed. 

They walked through carefully landscaped grounds that included many flowers that gave the club its name, past the swimming pool and into the clubhouse.

“Good to see you again, Harris,” a red-haired man at the bar proper waved them over. “And it sounds like you’ve brought someone more interesting than this normal crowd.”

“I aim to always please, Walters.” Xander said as they walked to the man. “Jon Walters, this is Dr. Adam Pierson, anthropologist, currently stuck here for a few days until his visa for Eritrea clears. Adam, Walters is a cell phone guy. Apparently we were lucky he’s in town this week instead of back in Djibouti extracting as much money as possible from every country that’s got a military base there.” 

“Like those idiot Eritreans can ever get something write on the first five attempts,” Walters muttered into his drink. “Either that, or they learned their bureaucracy from the bloody Indians.”

“So in the meanwhile, I’m showing my old friend Adam around town and thought that, hey this kind of thing might be a little home-like for him. Hasn’t been able to get back to England in about forever at this point. “ Xander sensed that Adam was trying not to roll his eyes at that. 

“You do seem to have a lovely collection of art here,” Adam said, looking at the paintings of fox hunts on the bar walls. 

“Let me show you around the rest of the place,” Walters said, putting down his glass, and starting up the tour. They started in the bar, Walters introducing them to the other patrons before moving onto the main dining room, the causal lunch area on the patio, the men’s smoking lounge, and a library that had a freakish number of animals heads on the walls. 

And then they got to what Walters described as the trophy room over by the tennis courts. It was a simple wood-paneled space, with shelves and niches for assorted cups and trophies proclaiming the year’s ladies singles champion or the annual intra-club tournament winner. As Walters dutifully discussed something about lawn bowls results, Xander felt Adam intentionally lightly kick into his foot, and as he looked toward the other man, Adam nodded at a simple blue crystal sphere that has been places next to yet another tennis trophy.

After what seemed like an eternity, they finally made their way back to the bar, and after the obligatory drink, they were later able to extract themselves from the land where time was still trying to stand still in 1955. 

********

“You do realize that is probably the worst Real Madrid counterfeit jersey in existence?” Adam said later that day as the line to enter the parking lot near the mall inched ahead. 

“That’s only part of the charm of it. It’s also three sizes too big, so I can fit a decent-sized fanny pack for gear around my belly, and voila, I’m just a typical fat American who so does not seem to have my breaking and entering supplies in neither the pockets of my cargo pants nor the bag around my waist. Between the wrong silhouette and our charms that mess with CCTV’s ability to get a good picture of our faces, well I should be able to continue showing myself around Nairobi once you and the orb get out of town.” 

“Let it not be said you didn’t learn how to prepare as the years went on,” Adam said as they finally made the entrance to the parking lot.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” the first guard said as another wrote down Xander’s license plate number. “Plans for tonight?” 

“Catch some soccer , or as you folks call it, football, at one of the sports bars by the mall. Good Premiere League action tonight.” Despite repeated and persistent exposure, Xander had never really managed to like watching soccer very much, but he knew how to talk about it so he could use it to blend into the background. 

“Enjoy the game, gentlemen,” the guard said, waving them through. 

“So we’re parking our getaway car in a walled off area with one way in and out and an armed guard at an accessible point. Ever think of getting back to the States or on to Australia and then going, yes, it’s surprisingly easy to move away from the scene of what some people might call a crime?” Adam said. 

“Yeah, and how it would just seem so easy at that point that it would be freaky, and I’d be wondering what the trap or catch was. and then there are the places like Manhattan where I’ve heard of people literally selling a chunk of their soul for a decent regular parking spot.” 

They went through the mall and around the other side, walking two blocks westward to the Orchid Club. Just before they got to the club entrance, Xander paused, pulling a small satchel of herbs out of his pocket. 

“Two guards and their dogs patrol the club after hours. It’s a modified wolfsbane charm that will put them to sleep, and since we do white magic these days, they will wake up again if there’s a threat nearby.”

“Got that,” Adam said as Xander pulled the ribbon to open the satchel, and softly chanted a few lines as the contents spilled to the ground. He felt the magic spill outward from the earth, finding its targets on the other side of the fence. Just to make sure, he found himself counting to ten in two different languages. 

“Okay, we’re good.” 

Adam pulled a key card from Cousin Caroline out of his pocket, inserting it into the slot at the club entrance. Walking softly as their eye adjusted to only the occasional security light and they pulled on gloves to prevent leaving any fingerprints, they made their way back to the tennis area as birds chirped about their presence from the trees.

“Mechanical lock,” Adam said quietly. Xander reached under the Unreal Madrid jersey and pulled his small lock pick kit over to Adam, who had claimed to learn that skill from a real expert and had always been better at such things than Xander. 

Subjective time slowed as Adam worried at the lock. It was probably only a few seconds before it clicked open instead of the minutes it seemed but it was all still uncomfortably exposed. They were in quickly, and as Adam pulled out a small reusable shopping back to hold the orb it helpfully glowed its position so it was almost easy to find amid the other sporting cups and trophies. It was almost like it wanted Adam to get it out of there. 

Then they were out of the room and circling around through the orchids again, the still open entryway in sight. 

The yelling began on the other side of the club fence, sounding like someone getting mugged just beyond the Fortress of Privilege. With hand signals, Xander and Adam indicated a plan to get out and then away from the noise. 

Before they could get more than a few steps, the howls of a dog with prey in sight began. Apparently the nearby commotion was enough to let his spell lapse. 

“Run.” Adam was not loud, but his voice was intense and likely carried. 

They bolted out of the club grounds in the direction of the mall. Which unfortunately turned out to also be the direction of a man with a handgun in the process of relieving two people of their valuables. 

“Stop there,” Handgun man said, and Xander and Adam did their best to fight inertia and quickly comply. 

“We don’t want trouble,” Xander said. 

“Wallets and phones. And the bag there too,” the gunman said, gesturing to what was wrapped around Orb Infinitus. 

“Just reaching for my wallet here,” Adam said, appearing to go for the back pocket of his jeans. 

Then he dropped the bag, shattering the orb and a dozen bolts of lightning seemed to nearly instantly burst out from the glass fragments on the pavement. The human and his first victims bolted away and Xander made a strategic retreat to the other side of the road. 

Adam just stood next to the shattered remains of the orb, his shoulders almost slumping in resignation. The lightning bolts seemed to briefly dance away, shattering streetlights and shorting out more lights in nearby buildings. Then they shifted back to their origin, but instead of going into the glass, they hit Adam, driving his body to the ground as it convulsed. Xander wanted to run toward the other man to try to help, but held back for a few moments as he tried to assess the situation. If he got himself electrocuted as well, he wouldn’t be much good to himself or his friend.

Time slowed again as the magical energy poured into the other man, Adam’s gasps of pain almost reassuring because they showed he was still alive. Then all went quiet and he slumped to the ground. 

“What was that?” Xander said as he carefully approached what now seemed to be an electricity-free zone. 

“A piece of someone’s soul,” Adam said between pants as he pushed himself to hands and knees. “Though not the part you trade for a Manhattan parking space.” 

Xander helped him to his feet and they quickly made their way back toward the parking lot to an increasing chorus of car and building alarms and an underlying hum of back-up generators kicking in. As they moved closer to the mall, Xander found himself hoping that the detonation of the electric soul had at least taken out most of the ever-present security cameras nearby. 

“Bit too much to drink,” he found himself telling the guards at the parking lot gate as he continued to prop up a still wobbly Adam on the way to the Land Cruiser. 

“Are you okay now?” he then asked Adam as the other man slumped against the side of the SUV while Xander pretended to fumble for his keys. Instead, Xander pulled an oversized zip tie out of his other pocket, and quickly secured a less than agile Adam’s hands behind him with it. 

“Xander?” Adam said, surprised at that move.

“Are you still Adam? Or did that piece of someone else or something else’s soul take over your body? I’ve got to be sure.” 

“I’m still me, but assuming you’re in trust but verify mode. If there’s nothing I can say, what are you going to do?”

“Get us in the Toyota, drive away, and go see my local expert in possessions and other traditional magics.” 

Adam was quiet and calm as Xander opened the doors and helped him into the passenger seat. It was typical Adam behavior for a man that seemed to want other people to either not notice him in the corner or to massively underestimate what he was capable of. Xander just hoped it was the real man and not just something else using the template for the person that had been there. 

He managed to get the Land Cruiser out of the parking lot before the guards heard of the explosions that would probably cause the area to otherwise get locked down as park of a terrorism investigation and started dialing David’s number as he cleared the larger commercial area, making arrangements to meet him at his apartment on the other side of Nairobi. 

The trip was spent with him reminiscing about the old days when he had first met up with Adam and Adam saying all the right things to indicate that at least his memories of that time were intact. They had just gotten to the part about manuscript recovery from the library at Timbuktu when he had to stop in order to concentrate on finding David’s home. 

David Kipeth lived in middle class Nairobi in a maze of identical sandstone-colored five story walk-up apartment buildings surrounding a small dirt rectangle that served as a community athletic field and social gathering spot. The landmarks one used to navigate were the heroes of Africa and the diaspora murals painted on the ends of each building and the number of satellite dishes growing off apartment balconies like mushrooms. Out of habit, Xander turned left at Patrice Lumumba, right at Nelson Mandela, and another left at Barack Obama before overshooting David’s apartment slightly and parking the car in front of a group of teenagers drinking Cokes as they hung around the entrance to the next building. 

“Evening, Ibrahim,” Xander said to the one that emerged from the group. 

“Evening, Mr. Harris. Headed to see Mr. Kipeth tonight?”

“Yeah, and unfortunately business instead of a social call,” Xander said, pulling a couple hundred shillings out of his pocket and passing it to the teen. David lived in a pretty decent area by Nairobi standards, but the Land Cruiser was at least fifteen years newer than anything else parked on the street, and it wasn’t a bad idea to have people David trusted keep an eye on it for him.

“Inshallah, may he help you how you need it,” Ibrahim said sincerely. 

“Thanks,” Xander said, gesturing Adam out of the SUV and back down the street, and hoping it didn’t look too much like a perp walk.

David’s three room apartment was only on the second floor, so at least Xander was spared the indignity of showing up at his door huffing from exertion. As always, David seemed to know exactly when he was coming, the slightly built man in an adidas track suit looking less formal than he usually did as he opened the door to the other two men. 

“Good evening, gentlemen. I understand you wish me to do a verification tonight?” They followed David into his apartment. Neat bowls of salt and herbs were on the table in the eat-in kitchen and rest of the furniture was, as always, arranged so you could put down a good-sized working circle in the middle of the living room. 

“Yeah. This was Adam. We need to make sure he’s still my friend Adam,” Xander said as Adam reflexively tried to offer a right hand to David, then shrugged and offered a slight smile of apology as the zip tie prevented the action. 

“Sorry there,” Adam said. 

“If you will direct your Adam to the open space,” David said, reaching for a cell phone on the kitchen counter. “I will remind my neighbors to have their smoke detectors off so my working don’t trigger them.” 

Xander planted Adam between a recliner and the big screen television that was a mark of just how many people were willing to pay for David’s services, the other man taking a seat cross-legged on the floor. David drew a circle around Adam with the salt, then selected a mix of herbs from the table and put them in a small brazier. The herbs were set on fire, the smell reminding Xander of a certain Indian takeaway shop in Liverpool, and David began to softly chant as he wafted the smoke toward an Adam who was trying not to cough. 

A few minutes later, David stopped his chant, blowing out the brazier with one large puff. 

“Your friend, he is not that Adam, but he is a very old soul. And indeed a human soul that has seen much,” David said. “That much I can tell.”

There was an offer in David’s statement. Xander could ask him to dig further into what was meant by the old soul in the man sitting on the floor. But that was a story Xander felt like Adam had to offer on his own rather than having it taken from him. 

“And that much is enough. I’ll have Prudence call tomorrow and make sure you’re taken care of.”

“Prudence’s voice is always a delight,” David said with a smile. Xander knew David had a bit of a crush on his office manager, and Prudence had suggested the crush might be mutual. 

They borrowed David’s kitchen shears to cut the zip tie off Adam’s wrists, and left the building, collecting the Land Cruiser from under the eyes of Ibrahaim and his friends. Xander had just gotten clear of the sandstone maze when Adam started to talk. 

“I know there are questions you’ve always had about me,” Adam began. 

“And here I thought I was being all sneaky,” Xander said as he conducted evasive maneuvers to get around a poorly driven minibus. “But yeah, I’m a Watcher and I’ve noticed a few things about you over the years about you that I’ve always wondered about.”

“I know how guys like David work, what they can see when they do a working on a person, and you could have asked him to look deeper at me. You didn’t.” 

“I don’ t know just what you are, but I know you’re a good guy. I’ve seen you in action too many times to buy that world-weary academic act you try to sell to other people. And more importantly, I feel like I still owe you a few big time. I know you try to pretend it never happened, like you try to pretend a lot of things never happened, but I remember what happened in Cote d’Ivoire. Someone opened fire on what was supposed to be neutral ground, and you shoved me into the dirt and took bullets for me.” He would never forget the feeling of his face in the dirt and Adam’s body shielding his own from automatic weapon fire, twitching as the bullets tore into his torso. “That whole line about how it was other people’s blood on you instead of your own, I didn’t push about because I figured I owed you, whoever or whatever you are. Still owe you big time, though maybe the balance on that account is a little less now.”

“Thank you,” Adam said. “Over the years, I’ve learned it’s not what you are or how you’re born, but what you chose to do with it and how you decide to live your life.”

So Adam wasn’t going to explain anything more on his own. Xander meant it when he said he was going to respect that. He would however turn the research division loose on information about the Orb in case another one turned up and was dangerous.

“So what’s next then?” Xander said, changing the subject. 

“I’m still not crazy about being this close to Tanzania, so if you could drop me back at the hotel, I can get my things and make my way back to the airport,” Adam said. 

“Can you tolerate stopping at the bar for a drink first? Cause it’s always nice to be able to catch up more with old friends and fellow fighters against evil, and I promise we can ignore the big giant elephant getting hit by lightning in the corner. We’ve got eleven zillion different ways of videoconferencing but it’s just not the same as in person and too many of my friends are all over the world most of the time.” 

“You said you still owe me. Want to buy the first round?” 

“That, I can do,” Xander said, making the first in a series of turns in the direction of the Sofitel. 

 

-fin

*******

Author’s note- there’s always a certain difficulty in writing about a place you’ve never been before, and doubly so when it’s a place very much outside your own experiences. Hopefully I’ve been respectful about a place that seems to have a really interesting future while still being realistic about some problems it has in the present.


End file.
